No Offense To The Universe Or Whatever, But I'd Pick My Family Over
by WriterorWhatever
Summary: (Full Title: No Offense To The Universe or Whatever, But I'd Pick My Family Over Mystic Cosmic Energy Any Day) A rewrite of the scene in "The Guru" where Aang locks his final chakra because he can't give up his earthly attachments but with more platonic love and sibling bonds this time around.


_**No Offense To The Universe Or Whatever, But I'd Pick My Family Over Mystic Cosmic Energy Any Day**_

_Summary: A rewrite of the scene in "The Guru" where Aang locks his final chakra because he can't give up his earthly attachments but with more platonic love and sibling bonds this time around. _

_Notes: Listen, I'm rewatching the series and I got to this episode and I was like "what if… same canon events but… more sibling bonds" and so here we are. It's just a rewrite of the scene from S02E19 where Aang's earthly attachments aren't his romantic feelings for Katara but his platonic love for his found family. Also… this might not be the last rewrite I do where I don't really change any canon events but just add more sibling bonds. Team Avatar as siblings is the hill I'm going to die on, alright._

"The Seventh chakra deals with pure cosmic energy and is blocked by earthly attachment. Meditate on what attaches you to this world." Aang let the guru's words wash over him as he closed his eyes and focused on his inner energy and emotions. Like with the six chakras before, it didn't take long for the answer to come to him in a series of flashes and memories.

"_Be careful, he could be fire nation!" Aang could hear a male voice, just a few years older than his own- which he now knows to be Sokka's, as he comes to awareness. He was cold and confused and when he opened his eyes he saw two confused, slightly guarded, faces looking back at him- Sokka and Katara, dressed in their parkas on the day he met them. _

The next flash was shorter, less of a clear memory and more of an emotional moment- he saw Katara and Sokka hugging him when he finally let himself feel the pain of losing Appa again, after having shut himself off from it after going postal in the avatar state.

Then another memory, one Aang didn't remember as having any real significance but remembered anyway.

_He saw the three of them sitting around a campfire, bickering. _

"_So, are you going to apologize to every tree when you cut off branches for firewood, now?" Katara teased, laughing at Sokka's spluttering at having been caught at whispering apologies to the trees that he cut small branches from. _

"_Well getting attacked by a giant swamp monster for hacking at plants makes a guy think about being a little nicer to the trees, alright?"_

"_See. I _told _you that you needed to be nicer to the swamp," Aang said between laughs. _

"_Oh, I'll show you nice," Sokka said, lunging sideways at Aang and tackling him, being careful to angle them away from the fire. Once he had the twelve year old pinned, he began to tickle him, wiggling his fingers under Aang's arms and over his sides, all while managing to hold his position despite the air currents that Aang was half-heartedly directing at him to get him to cease the tickle attack. _

_After a few more moments of tickling, Aang tried to surrender, "Alright, alright, I'll never tell you to be nice again." _

_Sokka didn't move off of him, but he did still his fingers. "So you're surrendering, huh?" Sokka said, sounding a bit suspicious. At Aang's nod, he continued, "Well, while not surprising, there are going to have to be terms to your surrender- well, just one term. You have to admit that I, Sokka, am the greatest tickler of all time and that you admit your defeat to the most fearsome tickling master that there is." _

_Aang began to laugh almost as hard as he'd been when Sokka was still tickling him. "I am _not _saying that." _

"_Then face the consequences," Sokka said, resuming his tickle attack, which has Aang's sides aching from laughter. _

"_Alright, okay, I've been defeated by Sokka, the great tickle master, second to none," Aang said between laughs after just a few seconds on Sokka's tickling. Sokka got off of him after that, offering him a hand to haul him back up into a sitting position, and then returning to his own spot around the campfire, a shit-eating grin squarely in place. _

_After a couple of moments of silence, Katara started laughing, though she tried to stifle it. _

"_What?" Sokka asked, confused at why his sister was laughing like she'd lost her mind. _

"_Nothing, O Great Tickle Master," Katara managed to get out between giggles. _

"_Oh, shut up," Sokka grumbled good naturedly as he reached behind him to grab his pillow from his sleeping bag, which he promptly threw at his sister, causing all three of them to dissolve into giggles. _

"Now let them go." Guru Pathik's voice pulled Aang from his memories. "Let them flow down the river, forgotten."

"What?! Why would I forget Sokka and Katara, I love them," Aang asked, confused. He knew he was supposed to unlock the avatar state so he could use it to try to end the war, but he wasn't sure that he agreed to the cost that mastering it came with.

"To let the cosmic energy flow through you, you must rid yourself of all earthly attachments," His teacher answered sagely.

"Hmm, let's see, mysterious cosmic energy or my friends?" Aang said sarcastically, and, wow, he had been spending too much time with Sokka because his sarcasm was wearing off onto him. "No offense to the universe or whoever but I'd rather have my friends."

"I know you love them, but you must learn to let them go."

"Let them go? Three chakras ago having attachments to them was a _good_ thing. Now you're telling me to just disregard my best friends- my family?" It was a good thing that he hadn't yet unblocked this chakra because Aang could feel his rage at the unfairness of the situation begin to rise in him, much like he felt at the Southern Air Temple.

"Not disregard, just allow them to become a part of the bigger picture. You don't have to stop loving them, but you must find a balance between that love and your duty as the avatar."

Aang took a deep breath, trying to ground himself and see reason. "Okay, I'll try." It was quite possibly the last thing he wanted to , but his family was counting on him to master the avatar state, so he was going to try. He turned his focus inward, to his connection to the avatars that came before him and to the universe itself, slowly letting his attachments to his family fade into the background, still there but no longer at the forefront of his focus.

Before they faded completely out of mind, however, Aang got another flash, only this one wasn't of a memory. It was a scene he'd never seen before: Katara chained up in the corner of a room, screaming and struggling to get free. Then it was gone.

The scene, brief as it was, was enough to drive Aang out of his meditative position and to his feet. "I have to go! Katara's in trouble." His voice held his conviction that what he'd seen had been real. He had to get Sokka and get back to Ba Sing Se and he had to do it _now. _

He was ready to jump down from the roof that they'd been sitting on and down the series of shorter rooftops until he got to the courtyard where Appa was probably sleeping, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"If you leave now, your chakra will be locked and you won't be able to enter the avatar state _at all_."

"I'll have to figure out another way then, because my sister is in trouble and I need to go _now_," Aang replied, his tone giving no room for argument. He leapt off the roof, making his way to his bison and, ultimately, to his siblings.

When he got to where Appa was sleeping, he gently nudged him awake. "Let's go, boy. Our family needs us," Aang said, climbing onto Appa's back and urging him to take off.

As the air temple faded into the distance behind them, Aang wondered briefly if he could save the world without the avatar state. But the flash of Katara afraid and in trouble had him pushing the thought out of his head. If he had to let go of his family, the first place where he'd felt like he truly belonged- even better than he had as a child at the air temple, then maybe that wasn't the best way.

They'd figure something else out. They always did.


End file.
